Better Than a Wall
by Foxy'sGirl
Summary: Astrid needs someone to talk to, but Hookfang is already occupied. Snotlout offers to listen anyway.


**There's not enough of these two interacting around here. **

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Stormfly doesn't agree with Astrid, and it's hurting the girl more than the rest of the situation. That's her _friend_, her best friend, her confidante. The first face she sees in the morning and the last one she says goodnight to before she goes to bed. And the Nadder looked right at her, all jewel tones and stern bright eyes, echoing Hiccup so much it's like she doesn't even have a side in any of this. No point in even thinking about siding with Astrid, she's just damn wrong.

She doesn't have a side and she doesn't have a choice.

Astrid sulks down the gravel road to the academy, salmon slippery in her hand as she slips through the closed chain gate and trots across the moonlit arena to Hookfang's pen. She slips through the metal bars and offers the big dragon the fish, laughing for the first time in what feels like weeks when he warbles happily and swallows it.

"Wah!" The shout comes from the other side of the dragon, followed by a heavy thunk and Astrid ducks and rolls under Hookfang's neck, arms raised in tight fists. A sleepy looking Snotlout retrieves his helmet from the floor and stuffs it back onto his head, glaring at her briefly before raising hammy hands in sleepy surrender.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, hand unfurling as she stands up straight and reaches beside her to stroke the scales on Hookfang's long neck. Snotlout frowns at her attain, rubbing his eyes with his hands, and she wonders just how long he's been sleeping here.

"What am I doing here? This is my dragon," he looks at her obviously and she flushes in the dark, letting her bangs fall down over her eyes.

"Right."

"What are you doing here?" He returns the question, sitting back down against Hookfang's flank and patting the dragon's stomach with an uncharacteristically soft hand. The big lizard croons happily and rests his head against Astrid's back, horns poking her in the shoulder as he tries to cuddle.

"Oh, hey," she laughs as the head butts more insistently against her side, allowing herself to be herded closer into the crook of the dragon's side as he tucks his two favorite people in close. "I—I don't know," her smile dies as her explanation fails to form, catching on her tongue invisibly and swirling. "Bringing him a fish."

"At night?" Snotlout almost pouts and leans his back against the warm scales, helmet slipping down further onto his forehead.

"Yes." She nods curtly and sits down a healthy body length away from him, tucked against Hookfang's armpit, almost too warm. "Why are you sleeping here?"

"He's _my_ dragon."

"I know, but I didn't figure he was your bed too," Astrid snaps, cranky and suddenly exhausted as her whole body warms and relaxes.

"I came down to say goodnight and fell asleep for a while," Snotlout sneers at the ground, scuffing a small rock with his foot. "My house is really loud right now, my aunt just had another kid and it's staying with my mom for a while."

"Oh," she remembers to be tactful, glancing at him through the dark. "Is your aunt ok?"

"She will be, the Goethi just said she needs a couple of days," he shrugs, but she can imagine the lines of worry along his broad jaw. This suddenly feels suspect and her toes tingle at the thought. Coming to see Hookfang was stupid, but it's the only thing that would even smudge the stain of Stormfly's judgement. "Why are you down here?"

"Bringing a fish."

"It's still weird, Astrid," he shrugs his shoulders up and hugs his knees, looking less brawny than normal and all the more approachable. Hookfang turns and fondly ruffles Astrid's braid, warm air puffing through her bangs and making her laugh. Stormfly is warm too, but in a different way, a center of heat emanating from her throat and barely touching her tail. Hookfang is warm everywhere, keeping the crisp fall air at bay. She wishes she could take off her pauldrons and get comfortable, and she would if Snotlout weren't obviously staring at her, waiting for an answer.

"I needed to talk to something." She falls back on sarcasm—Hiccup's damn sarcasm—and in the moment, she hates herself for it. "My wall wasn't listening."

"You've been doing that lately." He scowls at the pebble just out of reach of his toes and she shrugs like she doesn't know what he's talking about. "You and Hiccup talk in this dumb little code. Why not just say the words you mean instead of saying other words and making me think so hard?"

"Thinking hard builds character," she hugs her knees to her chest and tries to ignore the armor digging into her seat. She wonders if she could get a baby nightmare for her room this winter, a personal little furnace. Then again, if it got a cold, there goes her whole house.

"You sound like my dad," he barks. She waits for the impression that never comes, the bravado hiding all that pain. The silence is nice, honesty floating between them like a heavy warm blanket. He stretches his legs out in front of him and scoots to get comfortable, leaning a little towards her and crossing his arms.

"I—I'm just really on edge."

"What were you going to tell Hookfang?" He sounds genuinely curious for a moment before he stares back at the wall, pouting and tugging his arms closer to himself. "He'd tell me anyway, you know, so it's not like it's really a secret."

She wants to tell him that there's no way, because Hiccup couldn't even glean a secret like this from Toothless, but then again, Stormfly let her know so much with a _look_. That she doesn't have a choice, she's stuck and her side doesn't exist.

"I tried to tell Stormfly earlier," Astrid admits, chin resting on her knees and Hookfang nuzzles again at her head, tucking her further along his flank like a proud father arranging his eggs. "But the way she looked at me—"

"Yeah, her Hofferson eye." Snotlout nods, surprisingly understanding.

"Her what?"

"She makes your exact disappointed face. Normally at me. But it stings."

"Fine. She gave me the _Hofferson_ eye," she sighs her last name, holding onto the consonants and riding the vowels as they run from her lips like warm honey.

"What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did anything?" She snaps, leg shooting out to kick him in the hip. He scoots away from her with a glare, and she wonders how he hasn't seen the precarious nature of this situation yet. She's waiting for the line, for the flirt, and it's starting to get to her that he's not leering.

She's a little too comfortable with this muted Snotlout, in a too dark, too quiet pen with one of the world's best secret keepers.

"I don't know, she's your dragon. You must have done something."

He's smarter than she gives him credit for.

"I'm not going to talk about this with you."

"But you'd tell Hookfang?"

"Hookfang isn't going to use the knowledge for his own benefit," she rolls her eyes and stares at the leg still extended by his side from where she kicked him. She wants to kick him again so she does and he glares at her, testing out a smarmy smirk before it obviously feels wrong and melds back into his sneer.

"I told you my issue."

"Yeah, about your aunt. That's not—It's not the same at all, alright? Just drop it."

"There are…" he counts in his head for a second, numbering on his fingers slowly before giving up and re-crossing his arms, hands fisted tightly. "There are plenty more dragon pens if you want to go talk to one of those walls instead of a person."

"I just might," she snaps, rocking slightly forward and contemplating standing up.

"Gods, you've gotten so weird," he shakes his head and she can't tell if he's goading her or not. She doesn't like it.

"What do you mean I've gotten weird?"

"You keep talking in your little word codes and staring at walls instead of talking to your friend."

"You're not my—" And that's just childish, yelling 'you're not my friend' at him like she's seven and he snatched her doll.

"Of course I'm your friend. We spend every day together, you talk to me every day. What else do you need?"

"I haven't been friends with you since you started…" she almost gestures to him, but that feels wrong right now so she folds her hands in her lap. "You don't act like I'm your friend."

"I'm letting you hang out with my dragon, that's friendly," he insists, thick eyebrows raised.

"Right, _letting_ me."

"I could sick him on you."

"He likes me too much," Astrid insists quietly, wondering how many people that sentence applies to and realizing it's probably one less than she thought. And that makes her so inordinately sad, she was so much happier believing the lie.

Snotlout likes her too much.

"What happened? I won't tell anyone."

"Right, because it's not like you'll run and blab to Hiccup first damn thing tomorrow morning."

"So it's about Hiccup then," he turns and smiles at her, not quite as cocky as normal, but still too confident. "Tell me more."

"No."

"Is it…he's been acting different lately. Ever since he tried to kick me out—"

"You almost got me killed!" Astrid snaps at the memory more than the boy in front of her. That feeling of being utterly cared for when Hiccup held her back from doing something stupid and hurting her hand on Snotlout's big dumb jaw. Did he like her too much then? Still?

She liked Hiccup way too much. She probably still does.

"I meant after that. Ever since the thing with Dagur he's been weird."

"Yeah, he kind of has," she agrees pleasantly, for the first time in the last few weeks it's like someone doesn't think she's crazy. "He's so…serious, you know?"

"Wow, _you_ are complaining about him being serious? That is bad." She laughs lightly, the sound strange and almost unwelcome escaping from her throat in front of Snotlout and only Snotlout. He grins at her, almost leering but not quite, a little brighter, a little more open.

"He…he's been crammed in the forge all day and I went by asking if he wanted to go flying. He snapped at me that he was busy and told me to go keep the twins out of trouble," Astrid smiles to herself, letting all of that exasperation click into place and feeling ok about it. "And that's not so bad, I do that kind of thing all the time but…but then he told me my evasion was looking sloppy and I should go practice. And he shut the forge window."

"He's like that," Snotlout shrugs. "With the rest of us at least, ever since we ran into Dagur on dragon island. You've always been special thou—oh. Oh."

"Took you long enough," she frowns at her toes, and she actually cares. That's the worst part.

"He's an idiot." Snotlout adjusts his helmet and scoots almost subtly towards her, hand on the ground between them. "I mean, he's my cousin, and you know how I look out for him—" She's not too upset to guffaw, "but if he did that, he's an idiot."

She thinks about it for a second, accepts the comfort that no one else would give.

Her hand lands on his between them and grips his fingers gently, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

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**Oi Oi Oi. **


End file.
